If Jake thought long and hard, he thought he remembered having some issues with Mr.Everly back in high school, but in that typical teenage boy way, chafing against authority.The man they’d talked to in his house had been… kind, cheerful, and definitelynotan asshole.Even when the topic had been uncomfortable.
“You have a falling out with your uncle?”Jake asked, trying for casual.
Something he usually didn’t have any issue with at work, but something about Bennet being here and well, dear old Dad’s memory, had him feeling itchier and less in control of himself than he’d like.
“You could say.”
“What wouldyousay?”
“I’d say, why are you here?”He wasn’t being belligerent exactly.
Not even cagey.Just… frustrated.If he was the one who’d threatened Cal…
Yeah, it didn’t track.Jake knew what guilty people of all stripes looked like—even the good actors had a tell.
This guy did not understand for the life of him why they were here and had next to no feelings on Cal at all.
“We had a conversation with Daryl Everly and noticed some drawings on his wall that matched some threatening drawings received.He claimed you were the artist, so we came down here to ask you about them.”
“Artist?Threats?He’s got some nerve.Daryl Everly is my mother’s brother.He terrorized my grandparents, and they gave him all this leeway for hisPTSD, but if you ask me?He was just an asshole.He threatened my mom—his ownsister—long before he went to Vietnam.I don’t have anything to do with that guy anymore.Once I was old enough to leave them behind, I did.Mom eventually saw the light and followed me here.Grandma’s in an assisted-living place in Bozeman.Grandpa’s dead.As far as I know, no one in my immediate family still talks to Daryl.Because he’s toxic, and he sure as hell doesn’t have anything ofminehanging on his walls.”
Toxic.
Jake exchanged a look with Cal, who looked even more baffled than Jake felt.
“So, you don’t do any kind of drawings?”
“Hell no.”
Jake had no doubts the guy was telling the truth.All his doubts now centered on why Daryl Everly had claimed it was true.
“Thank you for your time,” Jake told him.“Sorry to trouble you, but this clarified some things.Thanks.”
Andrew looked from him to Cal, some of the anger dissipating.
“Yeah, sure.Listen, if he’s finally getting in some trouble, I’ll help in whatever way I can.Guy deserves anything coming to him if you ask me.”
Jake nodded.“Thanks for the offer.”He glanced at Cal, who just turned and left without another word.
Jake followed, down the hall then out of the building and into a rapidly falling evening.
None of it made sense.Not one lick of it.
“I keep thinking we must be talking about two different Daryl Everlys, but I don’t know how.”Cal looked back at the building again.“One of them has to be lying.”
“Yeah, and I think it’s the one who fed us a load of bullshit and sent us on a wild goose chase,” Jake said, squinting out at the setting sun.“Why?What’s the purpose of doing that?”
“I don’t know.”Cal looked like he wanted to punch something.Jake felt oddly calmer about the whole thing now.“But if he sent us here, on this wild goose chase, I don’t think we should spend the night here.”
Well, they could agree on something, it seemed.Becausesomeonehad drawn those pictures that looked like Cal’s threat, and if Everly had sent them to someone who definitely didn’t, he knew whodid.
“No, let’s get back to Marietta.ASAP.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A Fishing Cabin outside Livingston
Sam was gritty-eyed,exhausted, and starving, but she’d finally tracked down the police officer whoshouldhave taken the report on Gerald Harrington’s suicide.
